A rush of blood
by XxTalented-x-CheesexX
Summary: Max and Logan are on the trail of a man who is mysteriously killing people and getting away with it, when something happens to Max. Logan finally realizes how much he cares about her. Will he be able to save her, and catch the bad guy? Max
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own Dark angel or any of its characters._

_**Author's note: **This is my first Dark angel fanfic, so I'm sorry if I get anything wrong. -I haven't seen all of the episodes. I've only made it to the fourth disk in season one so far. _

_This fic is set in season one in the episode where Logan's wife shows up._

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A rush of blood.

_Chapter one._

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Life. Max couldn't understand why people looked at it with such misguided optimism and hope. It sucked. 

She'd spent a long time running from her childhood, thinking that was the cause of all her problems. Why wouldn't she? She'd been created in a secret government laboratory for god's sake. It was a pretty conceivable conclusion to come to. Now she was discovering it was life. It just plain sucked. Max had realized that life loved to get one over on the idiots stupid enough to believe that it was a gift. And on the cynical bitches like her who didn't believe in anything. Basically it was a loose, loose situation. Inevitably, eventually something always went wrong. That was life. Tonight Max hated it.

"Slow down, boo!" Original Cindy yelled at her from the sidewalk.

Her mood must have been obvious. Of course it freaking was, she was speeding up and down the same run down Seattle street on her motorbike, like she was trying to escape some invisible fire. So what? She needed to vent.

"Max! I said take it easy!"

"'Just blowin' off steam." She yelled back, expertly leaning forward as her bike sped up to take the sharp corner.

She had a lot of steam. Mostly rising from the uncompromising scene she had just witnessed. Max had gone to Logan's place for some advice on the latest dead in the water dilemma he'd taken it upon himself to fix, and found him so completely lost in his ex wife Valerie's mouth, that he didn't even see her.

_So what? _She thought stubbornly. _Logan's a free agent. He can do whatever the hell he likes._

She eased her bike into fourth, and slowly brought it to a stop in front of a fuming looking Cindy.

"Look, while I understand that sustaining serious injuries to your head might help you forget that you saw your sugar getting busy with someone else, it aint a good idea. Girl, haven't you ever heard off speed limits?"

Max snorted.

"We're living in an economic depression. Nobody gives a damn about a little thing like the law."

"Max, there are too many cops out there thinking they thugs. I doubt they'll go easy on you just 'cos your sugar-"

"He is not my sugar." Max interrupted. "It doesn't bother me."

"Oh, so he's not the reason why your zooming up and down here like a squirrel on steroids?"

"No." Max said quietly, starting her bike up again. She was bored of this conversation.

"Girl, where 'you going?"

"'Still got steam."

She always seemed to have steam these days. A never-ending amount. There was always something bothering her. Bent cops. Manticore. Logan…

Max took a deep; stinging breath of the icy air currently whooshing around her black leather insulated body. She didn't fully understand what was between her and Logan. She never had. Thinking back to her first, unbiased impressions of him, she remembered him being cute. Clever. She remembered wanting him to kiss her that night in front of the mirror. She also remembered him playing her to figure out who she was. That had hurt. Why would it hurt if there were no feelings there? Why would it hurt now? She hated things being so complicated.

Max sighed, and decided to turn her attention to he bike. A ninja 660. Simple perfection; simple being the operative word. It didn't get much more simple that basic speed. The intoxicating feel of the air coursing through her hair. Being completely at peace, while thinking about absolutely nothing.

She must have taken thinking about absolutely nothing slightly too far, and blanked out for a second, because she didn't even see the scaffolding truck coming. All it took was a second.

Max jerked into action, and slammed on the brakes, skidding precariously to the left. She heard the trucks breaks screech too as it veered desperately from one side to the other, trying to miss her. Max's bike smashed into the side of it, and she bolted forward, before being hurled off the side. She landed with a painful, concussing thud on the stray bits of scaffolding that had splintered off the back of the truck when it braked.

Original Cindy hurried to the scene, shouting her name. She knelt down beside her head.

"Jesus girl, are you okay?"

"Not so much boo." Max winced breathlessly.

She knew she was hurt. Hurt even worse that a genetically modified killing machine was used to. A glance down only confirmed this. A forty inch metal pole was sticking out of her abdomen. Impaling her. Nicely decorated with a growing puddle of warm scarlet blood.

Cindy started shaking.

"Oh my god… Oh my god!"

"Is she alright? Is she okay? She just came right towards me, I-I swear I couldn't have done anything else… Is she alright?"

the last thing Max heard was Cindy turning and yelling at the truck driver to call an ambulance. Then she passed out. Well, it was going to take a hell of a lot of beauty sleep to fix this little imperfection wasn't it? Life really did suck.

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_What did you think? Please reveiew._


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for all of the reviews, I really appreciate them! I don't really like this chapter that much, it just doesn't feel right, maybe a bit rushed? Anyway tell me what you think.

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Chapter two.

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Logan laughed softly, and carefully poured himself another generous glass of chilled red wine.

"Are you sure you don't mind me drinking this?" he asked, suddenly very aware that he was in the company of a recovering alcoholic.

Valerie smiled against the rim of her sparkling water brimming glass, and shook her head. Logan noticed how her red hair shone in the soft candle light. He used to love her hair.

"Not at all." She insisted. "I never used to drink that stuff anyway. I always told you it tasted like cat pee."

Logan smiled.

"I remember. You announced it very loudly in the middle of the restaurant, as I recall. Right before you tried to club to club a waiter with the bottle."

"I'd forgotten about that!" Valerie laughed, settling her glass down so she didn't spill its contents.

"I really don't see how…"

"Hey, you've had your embarrassing moments too."

"Oh yeah?"

"I seem to remember a certain idiot walking into a glass door at a family reunion, getting a pretty bad concussion, and telling his uncle Jonas exactly what he thought of him."

"I don't think I've met this idiot." Logan said sheepishly.

"Oh, I'm sure you have. He's my ex husband. Kinda cute, spiky hair, nice eyes, great kisser…"

Logan smiled, and leaned forward to respond to her flirting. He wasn't exactly sure what he was doing. Being the sort of person who prided himself on knowing everything all of the time, the situation should have terrified him. But it didn't. He hadn't seen Val for years. He'd missed her. The sober side of her. Seeing her again was bringing back old feelings, even if he knew full well that they didn't exist any more. Right now, he was happy to pretend that they did.

Before his lips could reach hers, the office door urgently swung open. Bling entered the room, looking slightly embarrassed and hesitant to interrupt.

"Bling, we're kinda in the middle of something here. Do you mind?"

"I-Its Max." Bling stuttered, seeming to stumble over his words.

"Can you tell her to come back later?" Logan said, trying to ignore the pang of guilt, ripping through his stomach.

"Logan, that's not what I mean. She's been in an accident."

The whole world stopped for a second. A thousand thoughts pulsed through Logan's mind. All of Max. Was she dead? What was the last thing he said to her? How could he cope without her?

"What happened?" He demanded, still fighting the wave of slow motion sweeping the room.

"Original Cindy called." Bling told him. "She sounded pretty shaken up. From what I could make out, Max almost collided with a truck. Came off her bike,-"

"Is she alright?"

"Logan she got a metal pole through her stomach."

Logan closed his eyes, physically flinching. Max could dodge bullets. Jump off buildings. Take out guys three times her size. But could she survive this?

Valerie's voice brought him back to reality.

"Max is the dark haired girl right? The one I met yesterday?"

Logan had to bite his tongue, to stop himself snapping that her questions were completely irrelevant, and it made no difference whether she knew Max or not.

"I have to go." He said monotonously, taking the brakes off his wheelchair.

Val stood up.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

Logan shook his head. He couldn't be with her right now.

Max…

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Logan wasn't sure whether to go into her room. He didn't like hospitals at the best of time. They unnerved him. The sterile smell of antiseptic. The coldness. The unvoiced fears and heartache hanging heavy in the air. But seeing Max in there unnerved him the most.

She was sleeping, or at least resting her eyes. Just lying there, carefully positioned in the standard sterile white hospital sheets. Her dishevelled dark curls haphazardly surrounded her face, contrasting with it, showing how pale she was. Her lips were ashen. Her eyes were puffy and red. She looked so weak. So helpless. Those were things Logan had never thought he would associate with Max. They were things he had never wanted to associate with her. It threw him into unfamiliar territory. Somewhere he had no idea what to expect.

He certainly wasn't expecting her reaction.

Logan greeted her with a truly heartfelt smile, the second she opened those huge dark eyes he'd been so scared of never seeing again. She mumbled something unenthusiastically, and tried her best to ignore him. When he started talking, she steered the conversation to business pretty much straight away.

Logan had put her on the trail of a very busy successful businessman, who he suspected was that way because he was killing his opposition. The only problem was he was nobody had any idea how he was doing it, but every time someone turned up dead, it looked like natural causes. Heart attack. Suicide. Stroke. Never murder.

"So our Mr Louis fancies himself as a scientist?" Logan asked, with sudden interest when Max told him about his prestigious library of rare and detailed books on anatomy and genetics. It never ceased to amaze him how off hand she could be about breaking into someone's house, taking out several guards, having a quick futile look around, then making a break for it with several vicious Alsatians hot on her heels.

Max shrugged.

"That's something you'll have to figure out, because I don't think I'll be up to hanging outside windows for a while. I was going to use a fake ID. Act like a threat."

"And see how he tried to kill you? That's a bit risky."

"But sure to work."

"I wouldn't have let you do that."

She glared at him, with that familiar 'like you could have stopped me' look glinting in her eyes.

"So think of something else then." She snapped.

"Max…" Logan said softly, with absolutely no idea how to end the sentence. He didn't know why she was being so off with him.

The confusion must have blossomed in his eyes, even thought his mouth couldn't seem to describe it, because when she looked at him the defiance melted, and she sighed.

"I-I'm just tired Logan." She told him, her voice wavering slightly.

Tired. Coming from someone who never slept, it wasn't a very good excuse. But what could he say? She wanted him to leave. So he left, with his tail in between his legs, confused and worried, dreading the prospect of working this case alone.

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I hate the last line. It just didn't sound right, but I couldn't seem to fix it! Please review. 


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